While there are a handful of differences between the Norway massacre and the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, Sean Connelly, who helped defend the government’s conviction of Timothy McVeigh in Denver, notes a distinguishing characteristic that ties the cases together: Both marked the end of innocence for their nations.

“People thought this kind of thing couldn’t happen in Oklahoma or in our country,” Connelly said Monday. “All these years later, I think the people of Norway felt the same way.”

Connelly, now in private practice after a stint on the state’s Court of Appeals, is struck by the tragedies’ differences as well as their similarities.

For starters, it took almost two full days for authorities to link McVeigh to the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, while the Norway bombing and shooting suspect, Anders Behring Breivik, surrendered at the scene of his shooting spree at an island youth camp.

McVeigh kept silent about his motives for years, but Breivik had a full-fledged marketing plan for his 1,500-page manifesto, complete with Facebook page and Twitter feed.

As the horror in Norway unfolded Friday, followed by events throughout the weekend, Connelly noted similarities between the attacks there and the bombing of the building in Oklahoma City.

At both times, scores of people were killed — 168 in Oklahoma City and 76 in Norway in the bombing attack in Oslo and the shootings on the island outside Norway’s capital.

Both men were angry at their governments. McVeigh said he was seeking revenge for government actions in the 1993 siege outside Waco, Texas. Authorities said Breivik thought the government’s support of multiculturalism and Muslim immigration threatened his country’s patriotic and cultural values.

McVeigh, however, more directly targeted his victims, Connelly said. While 19 children were killed at a day-care center inside the building, the majority of those who died were federal workers and law enforcement personnel.

Breivik, meanwhile, failed in his attempt at a large body count among government workers — killing eight in Oslo. The bulk of his victims were young people at the camp for future Labor party leaders.

Both men used bombs made from fertilizer, but McVeigh’s was considerably larger, injuring nearly 700 people and damaging about 300 buildings.

Connelly, now a partner at Reilly Pozner LLP, said both crimes set a new and tragic standard for how awful a person’s actions can be.

“When Oklahoma City happened, I could never imagine anything like that. It was so shocking to me and the rest of the country,” he said.

Then came Columbine and the Sept. 11 attacks — both of which stunned the world.

Now, we have Norway.

“It seems like every time we think we can’t be shocked anymore,” Connelly said, “something happens like this.”

Today, one out of every three men imprisoned in Colorado -- and four out of every five women inmates -- say they have some type of moderate to critical mental health need, according to the Colorado Department of Corrections. The number of inmates with mental health needs in Colorado's prisons has steadily risen in the past two decades.

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